


For the Aesthetic

by 3amepiphany



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:22:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9502265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: Some spots are worth going back to for a re-shoot. Some. Sometimes. Not always. This was a really terrible idea and it probably wasn't worth it. This wasn't a some or a sometimes or anything but a bad idea.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This may become a series - thanks to the folks and contributors of shittyaus over on Tumblr for a fun list of ideas that included this one: "alternatively - I was taking photos in the park and I just now noticed some stranger in the background of my photos making funny faces and ruining my aesthetic I’m gonna hunt you down you fucker"

“These would be really great but--” Peepers said, and then stopped when Hater looked up at him very suddenly from the set of digital proofs they were looking at on the screen. “It’s not you, I promise. Here, look, do you see it?”

And after a moment he did. And he saw it again in the next one. And the next, and the next, and then he scrolled all the way back up and saw it in several more, too. He bellowed so angrily and so loudly at the idea that they’d have to take even MORE time off and spend MORE of their production fund on another trip to Baahalla to get these images re-shot that Peepers thought he was going to wake the dead. Or at the very least, the neighbors.

Their guide, Cashmere, was very happy to have them back, even if they weren’t so happy to be back. He greeted them at the spaceport, directly on the tarmac - and then quickly ushered them indoors for some hot drinks and lunch, and to introduce them to his girlfriend Beeza, who had also recently arrived for her own visit. As they sat down at one of the big communal tables with their coffees and teas, she and Peepers made some small talk about warmer climates that they were both familiar with through their own travels, while Hater took a moment to pull out his laptop and start it up with the intention of showing Cashmere first-hand why they were back again after having been here only a few weeks ago.

“Our only option was to come back. We can’t replicate this setting anywhere else. My artbook is in really, horribly, terribly big danger. My gallery showing, my printwork, all of it. The whole project is in serious danger.” Hater turned the laptop around, having pulled up several of the more obvious offenders of the shoot.

“Cash,” said Beeza almost instantly, with a short laugh. She had leaned over and it hadn’t taken her long to pick out the issue. “It’s Wander.”

Peepers nearly spit out the deliciously black and steaming hot coffee he’d just taken a sip of. He gulped so hard that he had taken in air, and he put a hand to his chest, trying to manage words. Everyone looked at him a little worriedly, but he gave them a small wave after a few moments to signify that he was okay. “You know this guy?” he asked, voice small and coming from the very, very back of his throat, strained.

Cashmere gave sort of a restrained smile. “Sure, he and his friend have been here visiting for a while on an extended visa. Everyone i n town knows them, they are very kind and not what we expect at all out of tourists here.”

“You have to introduce us,” Hater said, and Peepers could see the gleam in his eye. That gleam that said that this was a problem to surmount no matter the cost. Perhaps the word gleam was wrong in this case, it was more like a flare. A brilliant, bright flare that screamed for intervention due to imminent danger and calamity.

“That’s a bad idea,” he rasped, shaking his head. It was more to try to dissuade Cashmere and Beeza, but it was fruitless.

They looked at him, then at Hater, and then at each other. After a moment of this wordless communication between them, Cashmere said, “I think it would actually be for the better. Wander is a very affable sort of person; once the situation is explained he would very likely offer up a very direct apology. I dare say he’d even be willing to rectify the matter by helping.” His wizened, though young eyes seemed just as focused as Haters’ about the matter. Clearly they both knew their merits here, but didn’t know that Hater was very likely going to strangle this Wander person on-sight. Peepers wasn’t really sure how to articulate this to them. At least while Hater was within their company. But before they left the spaceport, after their delicious lunch, he tried.

Bless him, he tried.

Beeza sort of grasped the severity of it, but she was still adamant that this was something that could be solved by confronting it or not. They’d come all this way again, though, why not at least try? She sure was sweet and willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, even if he felt that her delivery of that virtue was sort of based in a strangely glib sort of manner.

Their guide, though kind, did have a bit more rationale.

“I think what might be best here is if we go to see him and his friend, while you two get on with the shoot. He does not stay far from where your last shoot locale is, perhaps this would buy you enough time to get your work done and then we can all meet afterward and have a discussion about it,” Cashmere said as he helped them settle their gear and travel belongings into his home again, letting them know, also, that the ancient castle that he lived in was still open to use in their photography, as it had been on their first visit. There was a new layer of freshly fallen and soft snow that danced about in the wind outside, and they and Beeza hadn’t even taken all of their layers of warm clothing off when they’d entered the giant stone abode and were greeted by the keeping staff. There was still this biting chill that made Peepers squeeze his eye fairly shut and Hater’s bones clatter noticeably as they convened in the great hall around the fireplace to plan out the following day, catch up on the last few weeks with Cashmere, and get to know Beeza a little more over what the young monarch-on-paper had to tell them earlier about her.

They also discussed the figure that had shown up in nearly every photo of their last shoot - Wander, and his friend Sylvia. She didn’t appear in any of the shots, and that made some sense to Cashmere and Beeza. She wasn’t as eccentric as her travel partner. They were both really great conversation but if you needed some calm sensibility, she was the one to appeal to first. Wander seemed to listen to her best, though he was still a pretty good listener to anyone else anyways, once he got the hubbub out of his system. Had they noticed he had been following them around playfully for their last shoot, they might have kindly asked him to join them and assist and it would have kept him occupied enough to keep him out of trouble; for the most part though he was harmless and very kind. He just liked to have a little fun. It was just that sometimes he wasn’t entirely aware of issues he caused until they became apparent to him, however, by then they would have fared catastrophically to those caught in his play.

Peepers was sort of dreading the re-shoot by the time they retired after dinner, and after traversing the castle in near dark and poor light for some shots that Hater had been too modest to try to catch the last time they were there. They bundled up in their soft beds in one of the many, many guest rooms, curled up awkwardly under layers of heavy helcaat pelts, the cold still reaching their very cores. Hater fell asleep immediately, as usual; Peepers stayed up for a bit with the screen of his phone dimmed as low as he could stand it, reading up on the laws of Baahalla for as long as he could before he too nodded off.

After a very filling and reconstitutional breakfast of hot oats and meats, the two groups split for the day. Peepers noted that Cashmere was suitably prepared in a simple tartan and a wroolen cloak as they parted, Beeza again fortified by the same several layers of insulative materials she’d had on the day before. He wondered if they might consent to a shoot of their own and an interview or two, of his own devising, for a separate project. How they met, how they made this work and all of that. It was very curious.

Their shoot was quicker and easier than the last time; they both knew the angles they needed, the rigging they needed, and even the levels were very nearly the exact same as before. It was incredibly pleasing for the both of them. After they finished the last few shots Hater had needed from the final locale, Peepers looked at his watch and noted that they actually had a good amount of time before they were to meet up with Cashmere and Beeza, and this Wander fellow - they could get some more shots in of the frozen lake if they wanted to. As soon as he’d said as much, though, he’d heard a loud, and over-excited “Hello! Hi!” from behind them. “Howdy! Are you Mr. Hater and Mr. Peepers? I’m really glad I caught you out here before y’all headed back into the village. I wanted to see if I could give y’all a hand--”

He stopped talking as Hater pelted him in the chest with a snowball. There was a quiet moment where Peepers wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen next, and where their interloper looked just as confused as well, a hand on his fuzzy orange chest and the ends of his thick scarf blowing about in the wind.

“Were you finished already?” he finally asked. “Oh, drat, I just knew it. I came out here to apologize for makin’ all those funny faces in your photos and I wanted to see if I could help you with your new shoot instead. Boy, I sure messed this up, didn’t I?”

Hater threw another snowball, or rather, he threw a bit of snow that had crusted over on top enough to hold itself together. It broke against Wander’s boots, clumping up in the furred cuffs and sending the finer powder scattering everywhere else in a little cloud. And then he bent down for more snow, packing a big handful of it down hard and advancing on Wander, who put his hands up and ducked down just as Hater threw it. It knocked his big, silly-looking hat off, and he scrambled to pick it up and retreat back behind a nearby tree.

“N-now hold on, buddy, are you playin’ around here? I don't know what’s goin’ on.”

“I am NOT your buddy,” Hater hollered, picking up a big chunk of snow and compacting it. He threw it and hit the tree square on, and it dumped all the snow and bits of ice it had in its branches down on Wander, who yelped and disappeared under it all.

“Hater, hold on, you’ll get us jailed here and I don’t want to be jailed here. Wait, wait!” Peepers yelled, vainly, tossing his equipment bag down with a pained sigh and chasing after Hater.

The mound of snow under the tree moved and shifted as Wander tried to dig his way out, and Hater approached, using his arms to shovel away the snow in great heaps. There was a muffled, “Oh, thank y--” that was cut short as Hater grabbed Wander and hefted him up out of the pile and shook him. He pulled him close and huffed and puffed at him threateningly. “L-l-let’s start again,” Wander said shakily with a small smile, wet fur sticking out everywhere and his little snow boots dangling freely. “Folks c-call me Wander. I’m sorry about your last shoot. It was all in fun but I see that it was rude of me. Y-y’all shooting for a band or a magazine? I hear this is a really great place for that. Lots of bands and musicians dressed in black come out here f-for the bleakness and the contrast, I gather.”

“No band. Art study,” Hater growled at him, tightening his grip a bit. “I like the death in Winter.”

Wander gulped, and wiggled a bit. “Oh! The scenery. Yeah. Me and my partner are here a spell for that, too. S-sure is n-nice.”

“Death in Winter is my focus.”

“Okay.”

“Eternal death in an eternal Winter.”

“Hater, put him down,” Peepers said, floundering through the extra snow around the tree. “Cashmere and Beeza are coming and they’re bringing a Zbornak with them. I don’t want to start a fight with a Zbornak.”

Hater stared at this little orange weirdo for a few more menacing moments before putting him down. “Death,” he grumbled. “In Winter.”  
Wander took a second or two to settle his fur and readjust his scarf before fishing around in the snow pile for his hat. “I suppose there’s something to be said about looking Death in the face and stickin’ your tongue out at it like you’re tryin’ to make a friend,” he said quietly, finding the wide-brimmed hat and shaking it free of snow. 

“Surely,” said Peepers, looking up at Hater, who looked like he was about to crack his teeth, he was clenching his bony jaw so hard. He really should have just digitally edited the guy out and kept his own mouth tightly shut.


End file.
